The European Parliament has called on the Vatican “to give full support to Cardinal Zen” and told the Holy See it should “strengthen its diplomatic efforts and its leverage on the Chinese authorities”.
In a resolution passed on July 7, the parliament condemned the arrest of the 90-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong by Chinese authorities and demanded that all charges against him be dropped.
Cardinal Zen was charged in a Hong Kong court on May 24 with four other prominent democracy advocates who were all trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped pro-democracy protesters to pay their legal fees.
In the non-binding resolution passed on Thursday, the EU parliament decried the arrest of Zen as “an attack on the freedoms guaranteed in the Hong Kong Basic Law, including the freedom of religion or belief”.
The resolution also recognized the cardinal as a leading advocate for democracy in Hong Kong and instructed the President of the European Parliament, Maltese Catholic Roberta Metsola, to communicate the resolution to the Holy See as well as other institutions.
“The European Parliament has stood and still stands and will continue to stand with Hong Kong. This parliament continues to actively show solidarity with Hong Kong democrats and against Chinese communist oppression,” said Reinhard Buetikofer, the leader of the European Parliament’s China delegation according to the South China Morning Post.
Zen was arrested by the authorities in Hong Kong on May 11 and was released on bail later on the same day. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to register a pro-democracy association.
The day after Zen’s arrest by Hong Kong authorities, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said he hoped that the cardinal’s arrest would not complicate the Holy See’s dialogue with China.
Human rights advocates this week voiced concerns after Pope Francis said the agreement was “moving well” and should be renewed.
On May 24, the World Day of Prayer for the Church in China, Zen said that the Holy See “made an unwise decision” to enter into a provisional agreement with the Chinese Communist Party government when it did.
“Martyrdom is normal in our Church,” Zen said. “We may not have to do that, but we may have to bear some pain and steel ourselves for our loyalty to our faith.”
The trial against Zen and other arrested citizens is scheduled to begin on September 19.
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CNA Staff, Nov 2, 2023 / 17:48 pm The U.S. state with the greatest number of religious freedom safeguards is Illinois, while the state with the fewest safeguards is West Virginia, according to a new […]
Pope Francis opens the Holy Door in L’Aquila, Italy on Aug. 28, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Aug 28, 2022 / 04:15 am (CNA).
Pope Francis became the first pope in 728 years to open the Holy Door of a 13th-century basilica in L’Aquila, Italy on Sunday.
During a visit to the Italian city located about 70 miles northeast of Rome on Aug. 28, the pope participated in a centuries-old tradition, the Celestinian Forgiveness, known in Italian as the Perdonanza Celestiniana.
The opening of the Holy Door marked a key moment in the annual celebration established by Pope Celestine V in 1294.
“For centuries L’Aquila has kept alive the gift that Pope Celestine V left it. It is the privilege of reminding everyone that with mercy, and only with it, the life of every man and woman can be lived with joy,” Pope Francis said in his homily during Mass at L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio.
“To be forgiven is to experience here and now what comes closest to the resurrection. Forgiveness is passing from death to life, from the experience of anguish and guilt to that of freedom and joy. May this church always be a place where we can be reconciled, and experience that grace that puts us back on our feet and gives us another chance,” he said.
Pope Francis began the day trip at 7:50 a.m. traveling by helicopter from the Vatican to L’Aquila. He visited the city’s cathedral, which is still being rebuilt after it was badly damaged during a 2019 earthquake in which more than 300 people died.
The pope wore a hard hat while touring the reconstruction area of the damaged church. He spoke to family members of earthquake victims in the town square in front of the cathedral, where local prisoners were also present in the crowd. People cheered and waved Vatican flags as Pope Francis greeted them from a wheelchair.
Pope Francis said: “First of all I thank you for your witness of faith: despite the pain and loss, which belong to our faith as pilgrims, you have fixed your gaze on Christ, crucified and risen, who with his love redeemed the nonsense of pain and death.”
“And Jesus has placed you back in the arms of the Father, who does not let a tear fall in vain, not even one, but gathers them all in his merciful heart,” he added.
After speaking to the families of the victims, Pope Francis traveled in the popemobile to L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, where he celebrated an outdoor Mass, recited the Angelus, and opened the Holy Door.
In his brief Angelus message, the pope offered a prayer for the people of Pakistan, where flash floods have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced thousands more.
Pope Francis also asked for the intercession of the Virgin Mary to obtain “forgiveness and peace for the whole world,” mentioning Ukraine and all other places suffering from war.
During his visit to L’Aquila, the pope said that he wanted the central Italian city to become a “capital of forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.”
“This is how peace is built through forgiveness received and given,” he said.
L’Aquila is the burial place of Pope Celestine V, who led the Catholic Church for just five months before his resignation on Dec. 13, 1294. The pope, who was canonized in 1313, is buried in L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio.
In the spring, the Vatican’s announcement that Pope Francis would visit L’Aquila prompted unsourced speculation that the trip could be the prelude to the 85-year-old pope’s resignation.
When Benedict XVI became the first pope to resign in almost 600 years in 2013, Vatican-watchers recalled that he had visited the tomb of Celestine V years earlier. During his trip on April 28, 2009, he left his pallium — the white wool vestment given to metropolitan archbishops — on the tomb. In hindsight, commentators suggested that Benedict was indicating his intention to resign.
In his homily in L’Aquila, Pope Francis praised Pope Celestine V for his humility and courage.
Mentioning Dante Alighieri’s description of Celestine as the man of “the great refusal,” Pope Francis underlined that Celestine should not be remembered as a man of “no” — for resigning the papacy — but as a man of “yes.”
Pope Francis said: “Indeed, there is no other way to accomplish God’s will than by assuming the strength of the humble, there is no other way. Precisely because they are so, the humble appear weak and losers in the eyes of men, but in reality they are the true winners, for they are the only ones who trust completely in the Lord and know his will.”
At the end of the Mass, the crowd prayed the Litany of Saints and watched as Pope Francis made history when he opened the basilica’s Holy Door. According to Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi of L’Aquila, Pope Francis is the first pope to open the Holy Door in 728 years.
Visiting cardinals have opened the Holy Door for the Celestinian Forgiveness in past years, after a reading of the bull of forgiveness by the local mayor. Celestine donated the papal bull to L’Aquila, where it is kept in an armored chapel in the tower of the town hall.
The bull of forgiveness drawn up by Celestine V offered a plenary indulgence to all who, having confessed and repented of their sins, go to the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio from Vespers on Aug. 28 to sunset on Aug. 29. A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary, and all the saints to remove the temporal punishment due to sin.
Celestine’s indulgence was exceptional at the time, given it was available to anyone, regardless of status or wealth, and cost nothing except personal repentance at a time when indulgences were often tied to almsgiving.
After opening the Holy Door, Pope Francis was wheeled through the basilica to the tomb of Pope Celestine V, where he spent a moment in silent prayer before the relics of his papal predecessor who was declared a saint in 1313.
“In the spirit of the world, which is dominated by pride, today’s Word of God invites us to be humble and meek. Humility does not consist in the devaluation of self, but rather in that healthy realism that makes us recognize our potential and also our miseries,” Pope Francis said.
“Starting precisely from our miseries, humility causes us to look away from ourselves and turn our gaze to God, the One who can do everything and also obtains for us what we cannot have on our own. ‘Everything is possible for those who believe (Mark 9:23).'”
Theodore McCarrick outside Dedham District Court, Friday, Sept. 4, 2021. / Joe Bukuras/CNA
Newark, N.J., Oct 1, 2021 / 15:44 pm (CNA).
A New Jersey federal judge ruled this week that the Archdiocese of Newark can be held financially responsible … […]
7 Comments
I don’t think such a move would be wise from the Vatican as Cardinal Zen, unlike his archrival Cardinal Parolin, is pro-sectarian and is relatively anti-traditionalist, and by anti-traditionalist, I’m not talking about the type of traditionalism, (i.e. Tridentine) that has been the subject of so much heated controversy of late. Rather, I’m talking about the original Vatican II style traditionalism that opts for sacred worship without all the modernist trappings that so many contemporary parish Churches have taken to since the 1990s such as replacing traditional sacred music with Hillsongs and other similar music genres. Also Zen’s sectarianism is fracticidal and dangerous to building social cohesion and Catholic unity in China as it gels readily with the divisive tendencies of other sectarian-leaning Evangelical groups who do not want to carve out building the Kingdom of God through dialogue but instead choose to remain seperatist in relation to the traditional Catholic Church in China. As Pope Francis always recommends, dialogue is the most productive and unitifying way forward. Anything that seeks to obstruct the conversation in this regard is antithetical to bearing good fruit.
The spectacle of the European Parliament calling on the Vatican to support a Cardinal being persecuted by a Communist government illustrates yet again the depths to which the Francis Church has dragged the Church. This plea will certainly be ignored by Francis and Bergoglio as they continue their negotiations with the Reds to extirpate Christianity from China.
A remarkable development to say the least. Hard to say just what is going on. Is the EU trolling Francis’ conciliatory postures toward them as unwelcome paternalism or has the Western media’s narrative of anti-Christian civilization been deflowered by the realities ‘on the ground’ and diplomats seeing the Communist (sino-russia) writing on the wall?
First of all, how do we know that the Vatican has been silent. Then it must be borne in mind that Cardinal Zen has involved himself in the political struggle. I feel quite confident that had the Cardinal been fighting for the Church, the anti-theistic Europeans would not have supported him.
Oh, but wait, the more recent agreement remains a secret.
In A.D. 452 Pope Leo the Great “dialogued” in secret with Attila the Hun in such a way that the invasion of Rome was averted (And, the papal procession was led by the monstrance and the Real Presence.) In the 1980s Pope St. John Paul II “dialogued” skillfully with the Soviet Union in such a way that the fall of the Empire fell was only partly from own weight.
I do agree that the secularist European Parliament is in a bit of a fix, given that it has refused to recognize in its Charter the complementary roles of Christianity and the Classical world in creating the event (more than a geography) called Europe, now in such danger.
I don’t think such a move would be wise from the Vatican as Cardinal Zen, unlike his archrival Cardinal Parolin, is pro-sectarian and is relatively anti-traditionalist, and by anti-traditionalist, I’m not talking about the type of traditionalism, (i.e. Tridentine) that has been the subject of so much heated controversy of late. Rather, I’m talking about the original Vatican II style traditionalism that opts for sacred worship without all the modernist trappings that so many contemporary parish Churches have taken to since the 1990s such as replacing traditional sacred music with Hillsongs and other similar music genres. Also Zen’s sectarianism is fracticidal and dangerous to building social cohesion and Catholic unity in China as it gels readily with the divisive tendencies of other sectarian-leaning Evangelical groups who do not want to carve out building the Kingdom of God through dialogue but instead choose to remain seperatist in relation to the traditional Catholic Church in China. As Pope Francis always recommends, dialogue is the most productive and unitifying way forward. Anything that seeks to obstruct the conversation in this regard is antithetical to bearing good fruit.
Your idiotic and barely intelligible comments bear all the marks of those of a paid troll of the CCP.
Triggered much?
The spectacle of the European Parliament calling on the Vatican to support a Cardinal being persecuted by a Communist government illustrates yet again the depths to which the Francis Church has dragged the Church. This plea will certainly be ignored by Francis and Bergoglio as they continue their negotiations with the Reds to extirpate Christianity from China.
A remarkable development to say the least. Hard to say just what is going on. Is the EU trolling Francis’ conciliatory postures toward them as unwelcome paternalism or has the Western media’s narrative of anti-Christian civilization been deflowered by the realities ‘on the ground’ and diplomats seeing the Communist (sino-russia) writing on the wall?
First of all, how do we know that the Vatican has been silent. Then it must be borne in mind that Cardinal Zen has involved himself in the political struggle. I feel quite confident that had the Cardinal been fighting for the Church, the anti-theistic Europeans would not have supported him.
As for whether the Vatican has been silent (a good question), we might at least compare Pope Benedict’s 2007 Open Letter to the Church in China with the 2018 “provisional agreement” (renewed in 2020) probably advanced by Parolin, and addressed to the politicians in China. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070527_china.html
Oh, but wait, the more recent agreement remains a secret.
In A.D. 452 Pope Leo the Great “dialogued” in secret with Attila the Hun in such a way that the invasion of Rome was averted (And, the papal procession was led by the monstrance and the Real Presence.) In the 1980s Pope St. John Paul II “dialogued” skillfully with the Soviet Union in such a way that the fall of the Empire fell was only partly from own weight.
I do agree that the secularist European Parliament is in a bit of a fix, given that it has refused to recognize in its Charter the complementary roles of Christianity and the Classical world in creating the event (more than a geography) called Europe, now in such danger.